Mix ‘n Match

July 26, 2009Angela (Oh She Glows)

by Angela (Oh She Glows) on July 26, 2009

Good afternoon!

Thanks for being patient with me as I get this lengthy recap post up! :) We went a little crazy with pictures last night, so there were a ton to sort through! Everyone wanted to try out Eric’s camera. :D

I wish I could show you the pictures of my 3 nephews and niece…they are so so so adorable!! As I have said before, I don’t post any pictures of children on the internet (something I feel strongly about) to protect their privacy. So just picture the cutest lil’ monsters possible and you’d have my niece and nephews! lol

We had such a ball yesterday and I just soaked up every minute with them. :D I got them these 4 puzzles which kept them entertained for about 30 minutes. lol. I swear they were better than Eric and I at putting them together! I guess we are rusty…

I also gave them each a box of my Glo Bars (they are OBSESSED with them!) and they were munching on them all day and night.

Here is a fun ‘centrepiece’ that I made that was quite the hit at the party yesterday! Eric and I didn’t have the money to spend on flowers so we simply took some from the garden. I thought some floating flowers would be a neat idea. Everyone really liked it!

I made about 5 of these in various sizes and scattered them in the kitchen and on the dining room table. It was a fun touch!

Our first mixed drink was mixed up by my sister Kerrie. She brought along this wonderful margarita mixer set. We decided on the pink grapefruit flavour. She added the bottle of the mix, along with tons of ice, and a ton of tequila. ;) It was lovely but very sweet. My two sisters, Kristi + Kerrie and I each had one and were ready to move onto a different drink. I think I had about half of this drink.

Our second drink was my Watermelon Rosemary Granita concoction. I added a bunch of ice and some vodka and blended it.

Kristi and I:

It was funny we both showed up with large earrings that matched our shirts! ;)

We couldn’t make our minds up on this drink. I think I put WAY too much rosemary in and Kerrie said she thought that she was eating ‘lamb’. LOL. I think it would have been much nicer without so much rosemary (I think I added 3 sprigs! lol). The good thing about this drink was that it wasn’t very sweet which we liked. I hate tons of sugar in drinks. It gives me a bad headache.

Our 3rd drink was another cantaloupe creation. I figured I had so much success with the last one, I would try another variation.

I added 1/2 cantaloupe, 1/3 frozen pink lemonade concentrate, ice, and several glugs of tequila for good measure.

Kerrie should be OSG’s ‘stager’, no?? ;)

This drink was our favourite out of all three. At this point I was pretty much ‘sugared out’ though, so I again only had about half the drink. After this drink, I moved onto Corona- one of my favourite ‘go to’ beers.

Some of you were asking what I was doing with my beer upside down. After you put the lemon into the Corona, you can stick your thumb in it, flip it upside down, and let the lemon float through the beer. This distributes the lemony flavour throughout the drink. My thumbs aren’t big enough though so it always squirts out the sides. Classy lady, I know!

I did one shot all night long, so it wasn’t too bad. On the menu was a Banana Liquor. My family and banana liquor go way back and it’s kind of an inside joke with us, so my brother Chris always tries to bring it to our parties.

So all in all, I had 1.5 mixed drinks, 1 Corona, and 1 shot. That was IT! I was so very proud of myself for not over-doing it and woke up with no hangover this morning. Quite a rarity for me at times!

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Now onto the FOOD of the evening!

Some prep pictures…

Regular cheese on the left, soy cheese on the right. The soy cheese tasted quite lovely. Everyone was surprised at how good it tasted.

The slow cooker roast stew:

Slow Cooker Stew

Adapted from Simply Organic by J. Cool

Ingredients:

1 large sweet onion, chopped

5 carrots, chopped

3 cups mushrooms, chopped

1 28oz can diced tomatoes

1 cup ketchup

2 T Honey Dijon mustard

2 T Worcestershire sauce

1/4 t fine grain sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 chuck roast (2-3 pounds)

Directions: Add the onion, carrots, mushrooms, garlic, and tomatoes into the slow cooker. Stir. In a small bowl, mix together the sauce ingredients: Ketchup, Dijon, Worcestershire, salt + pepper. Pour half of the sauce over the vegetables in the slow cooker. Add the roast and then baste the roast with the rest of the sauce. Cook on low for 8-9 hours, covering the roast with liquid every hour or so (time permitting). Serves 6-8 people.

I made some of the sauce separate from the slow cooker roast so I could try it too. I wasn’t over the moon about it, but it was good. The sauce is sweet (from the ketchup) so if you enjoy a sweeter sauce you would probably like this one. It was great for the kids because they loved the sweetness of it.

The vegetable cobbler:

I would have given this vegetable cobbler recipe a 10 star rating had it not been too liquidy! Next time I make this stew I would cut the amount of liquid in half. It was simply too ‘soupy’ on the inside.

CRUST: Mix the dry ingredients, then the butter and cheese, and finally wisk in the ‘buttermilk’. Place in fridge with you prepare the filling.

FILLING: Chop all veggies into small pieces. In a large saucepan, combine the butter and flour and stir until it thickens. Next add the veggie broth and keep stirring. After about 5 mins. when it has thickened up nicely, add all the chopped veggies. Stir, stir, stir. Transfer the veggie mixture into the casserole dish. Sprinkle with half of the cheese. Now take the ‘crust’ mixture from the fridge and spoon it onto the top of the veggie mixture. Finish by sprinkling the top with the remaining cheese. I found the crust mixture made way too much, so next time I would probably only use half (or just half the crust recipe above).

Bake for 45-50 minutes. During the last 10 minutes of cooking, switch to the broil setting on low-medium so you can crisp the crust.

Later on, I served my Vegan Banana Chocolate Chip cake with a vegan banana ‘buttercream’ frosting. I garnished it with some flowers. :) Everyone really loved the cake. I didn’t have any because I wasn’t feeling the sugar, but I had a slice today and it was lovely. :)

You’d think there was about 50 of us drinking last night! Nope, just 7…lol.

The ‘newlyweds’ as they still call us. :)

Oh- for those of you who asked my shirt is from BEBE. I have one in green too. When I find a shirt I like (which is quite rare) I buy it in different colours. ;) I love, love, love the cut and style of this shirt.

More ‘seester’ shots:

The late night munchies. My brother brought out the chips in a POT. We are by no means a froofy-fancy family! :D

I had some chips and salsa and some of those amazing PC BBQ rib chips I reviewed a couple weeks ago.

Wii all night long until 1:30am. I ROCKED this golf game that we played and I am now obsessed with it! Tiger step aside!!!

Well folks, I need to wrap up this mammoth recap post!

I didn’t have my green monster this morning and I am really missing it. I will definitely be having one tonight! We’re quite tired today as the lil ‘monsters’ woke us up very early this morning! ;) Hopefully the green monster will give me some pep to my step.

Saturday morning I was able to squeeze in a 45 min. treadmill workout which was nice. No workout yet today. I may or may not do some light walking on the treadmill tonight but I’m not sure. The weather is storming here AGAIN today so we can’t get outside! Ugh, when will the rain end???

Do you ever get together with family and party? Does it ever get crazy & what do you do?

I love partying with family. It tends to be pretty tame these days, but man we used to have some wild nights in the past! lol. Eric had his first introduction to my dad and brother Chris at one family party. Let’s just say they sat Eric down at dinner and poured him a few shots of tequila to ‘initiate’ him!!! He was very GREEN the next morning, let me tell you…lol.

You and your sister are SO gorgeous!
I love that you won’t post pictures of children — it really bothers me when I see photos of random people who clearly did NOT consent to have their photos on hugely popular blogs (for example, there was a recent blog post showing people at the gym, working out). So it’s sweet of you to protect the kids!

Can we have buy your products in the US yet?
And i have one little suggestion — some of your products are labeled as vegan but they contain honey. I realize that’s a point of contention in the vegan community, but many vegans would consider the label misleading or inaccurate. If it contains honey, it shouldn’t be labeled as vegan. Just something to consider! (Even better would be to tweak the recipe so that vegans can consume, too!)
I don’t mean to be critical; I love your blog.

I’ve actually removed the use of ALL honey from my Glo Bakery products. I just have not had a chance to update the ingredients yet. Thanks for the reminder! ~A

Hi Angela, sounds like a great visit with family which is the most important part. I have several comments about your night. One your table setting is great the flower arrangements are beautiful. In fact no need to mention you cannot afford flowers as your arrangements showed originality and added a special touch. Two drinking, this past New years eve I was in Vancouver visiting my daughter and we ended up at a bar in Kitsilano where she lives. Now usually more than one glass of red wine and I have had enough but this night I had two martini’s a shot of jagermeister probably did not spell this right and it tasted foul a side car and two shots of tequila over the course of 4-5 hours. In between lots of water and before bed even more. Surprisingly not only could we walk home but the next day we felt great. So I believe hydration is key. Enjoy the rest of your visit with you family hopefully the rain will finally stop and you can spend more time outside.

Lol my family in Colombia defines partying. Usually people will work in the kitchen all day making empanads and arepas and whatever else they can think of, then there’s music so everyone starts dancing. And my grandpa is always telling jokes and stories about his crazy antics.

In that one picture you totally look like you could be a Corona spokesmodel! I love how you show that living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be rigid – that you can still have fun!

Sounds like you had a blast! Glad you didn’t over do it though … i tell you what though, I definitely understand the too sweet stuff. sometimes enough is enough, and a lot of the time it involves mixed drinks!
anyway, im blabbing so I hope you have a wonderful run on the treadmill!
-muffy

My family is obsessed with food. It’s all we talk about. When we get together, it’s usually focused around eating!! One time, my father and brother talked about the coleslaw they’d just had at a restaurant for three hours on the way home from CT. We’re crazy!!

Oy vay, my family can PARTY. It’s ridiculous, really. My parents are in their mid-fifties and can totally drink me under the table. Honestly, I think our big parties with family and friends are often more fun than most of the college parties I went to. It’s fun because my older brother always has a bunch of crazy friends come over and everyone feeds off their college/frat boy type energy.

I’m so glad you had such a wonderful time with your family. All that food looks so amazing, and I can totally tell that you put a lot of time and effort into making this a perfect stay for them. And I agree that those flower centerpieces are just gorgeous! So creative!

Your family is kind of like mine (my extended family and friends, that equals family to me!) since we go crazy with the drink combos, random shots (we are jello shot people!) and throwback games! I can’t believe that you could mix all those drinks together. I would have been a sick puppy. I have to pretty much stay with the same thing all night or it’s not pretty. Glad you had such a blast!

Hi Angela – I made your veggie cobbler tonight for diner and it was fabulous! I shared it on my blog with a link back to yours. I can’t wait to make it again – I’m going to try it next with an Italian theme :) thanks for the inspiration – I really enjoy your blog.